Friday, October 31, 2014

The World Series just ended this week with the San Francisco Giants winning their third damn title in five years on the strength of Madison Bumgarner's absurdly awesome left arm. Clearly, the Phillies wont' be anywhere near the Fall Classic for quite some time, which gives us all the more reason to reminisce about 2008.

Friday, September 26, 2014

I love Chip Kelly. Don't get it twisted. The Eagles are legitimately good, thanks in large part to Kelly, and reading things like this only makes me love the guy even more.

But let's be honest. It's going to take a little while before we really, truly know Chip Kelly the way we did Andy Reid. Fourteen years a the helm with unprecedented success in franchise history to go along with five NFC championships and a Super Bowl appearance make Andy Reid part of the Philadelphia foundation, no matter what your feelings are or were on the man.

So it's always fun to see Andy's light side, like his victory dance last weekend after his Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Miami Dolphins.

I'm not going to lie, I find myself rooting for Andy even now that he's left Philadelphia. Sure, he drove me crazy on the regular, but he also was an excellent coach and seemingly a very good guy.

I wouldn't trade Chip for him or anything, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the guy from time to time.

The Chicago Bears are getting a lot of attention heading into their first game of the 2014 season this Sunday and for good reason. With an offense that includes perhaps the best wide receiver duo in the NFL in Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery in addition to Matt Forte in the backfield, Jay Cutler and the Bears should score lots of points.

Friday, May 30, 2014

Tonight, the Chicago Blackhawks and Los Angeles Kings meet in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals. The Kings can punch their ticket to meet the New York Rangers in the Stanley Cup Final with a victory, while the defending Stanley Cup champs look to force a Game 7.

Friday, May 16, 2014

The Los Angeles Clippers were eliminated from the NBA playoffs last night at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder, but without a doubt, the Clips and the controversy surrounding owner Donald Sterling have dominated the headlines.

Friday, May 2, 2014

The Oklahoma City Thunder and Memphis Grizzlies play a game 7 tomorrow, with OKC on the brink in the same season Kevin Durant is about to win his first MVP award. That's not good. Maybe this song, "Durant & Westbrook," by Kool Keith will inspire the Thunder to victory. Or maybe not.

So here's the thing — I don't understand Drake. I mean, I understand that he's from Canada and really popular with younger people, but I don't understand what Drake is. Is he a rapper? An R&B mix of a singer? I don't know.

All I do know is that Drake's music is absolutely terrible to my ears, which only adds to my confusion. His voice is annoying. His lyrics are stupid. And he's not really good at rapping or singing. Yet he's everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

Manziel was an excellent college quarterback, winning the Heisman as a redshirt freshman and doing some amazing things at Texas A&M. But I don't understand the infatuation with him as far as his off-the-field incidents, which don't seem like a big deal at all. And I don't understand how he'll fit in the NFL, or where he'll be drafted.

So maybe it makes perfect sense that Drake wrote a song about Johnny Manziel, because both people are pretty damn confusing.

Anyway, here it is. I listened to it once, and I will never listen to it again because Drake is terrible.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Well it took all of three games for me to get sick of Ryne
Sandberg. When he took over for Charlie Manuel late last season, it was
whatever. The Phils were out of contention, and it was nothing more than an
opportunity for him to get his feet wet. Let him evaluate his players and get a
feel for managing at the big league level.

Expectations are low for the 2014 Phillies, as Ruben Amaro
Jr. has managed to turn the World Series caliber team he inherited into an
aging, middle-of-the-pack squad. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn't go out
and try to win games, and it doesn’t mean fans shouldn’t hope for the
unexpected. After the season-opening series in Texas, my patience for Ryne
Sandberg is already waning.

The Phillies will head to Chicago with a 1-2 record, but
they could have very easily been 3-0 and absolutely should be 2-1. Tuesday’s
loss isn’t 100% on Sandberg, but he made some decisions before the game even
started that I disagreed with. Most people will look at Wednesday night’s loss
and point the finger at Jonathan Papelbon, and he deserves his share of the
blame (especially with his comments last year about “not coming here for this”
and wanting to be in a competitive situation). But despite Papelbon’s piss-poor
performance, he did enough to get the job done and the Phillies should have
escaped with the victory if not for a crucial error in judgment by Sandberg.

What I disagreed with on Tuesday was the lineup. I didn’t
like that he sat Dom Brown, and I really didn’t like that he sat Cody Asche.
Asche, making his first opening day start, had perhaps his best game in the
majors. He was 3-for-4 with a home run and a walk, drove in two runs and scored four
runs. The kid had to be feeling great and had confidence through the roof. But
instead of penciling Asche right back in the lineup, he sits him. The logic was
to “protect” him from a lefty pitcher. I say why not send the kid right back
out there while he is feeling great and see if he can build off of the hot
start. Instead he rode the pine, along with Dom, and the offense banged out a
whopping two runs.

There are going to be lots of lineup changes over a 162-game
season, with a lot of factors playing in. Sometimes managers just like to go
with a gut feeling. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I understand that and can live with it, but I disagreed with his decision and it irked
me.

What happened on Wednesday night did more than irk me. I was
legitimately angry. It was an in-game decision, and making the wrong one
directly led to the Phillies losing the game.

Allow me to set the scene: Phils lead 3-2, bottom of the 9th,
runners on 1st and 3rd. If you are able to induce a
groundball, you can turn the double play and end the game. So here I am
watching the game, and I see the ball hit on the ground. Looks like it should
be a tailor-made double-play ball. I begin to stand in anticipation of the
possible double-play and the Phillies win, when to my horror I see the ball
shoot pass a diving Utley, who had apparently been playing just behind the
front of the infield grass. Tie game. Long story short, Papelbon concedes
another run and the Phils lose.

I was watching the
game on ESPN instead of the local feed, and they made no mention of the
Phillies' defensive alignment, so I was just assuming that they were at
double-play depth. So when I saw Utley diving for a ball that looked off the
bat like a tailor-made double-play ball, I was shocked, shock that eventually
wore off leaving behind anger.

After the play, ESPN aired a pre-pitch replay that showed
that the Phillies were, for some reason, playing the infield in. It makes
absolutely no sense. If you are hoping for a groundball anyway, why would you choose
the riskier proposition of the drawn-in infield and the potential play at the
plate when you have the safer option of the double play? Even if you get lucky
enough to have the ball hit right at a drawn-in infielder and get the out at
the plate, you have still left yourself with an out to get with the tying run
still in scoring position and the winning run on base. If you are at double-play depth, you give your fielders a better chance because the ball doesn’t
have to be hit right at them, and a successful double-play ends the game and
gets you a series win to open the season.

Again, I cannot see the logic to playing the infield in
instead of at double-play depth in that situation. Even if the Rangers had hit
a sac fly to tie the game instead of that grounder, I would have been angry
upon finding out they weren’t at double-play depth. As it plays out, there is a
grounder hit basically right to where Utley would have/should have been playing
that more than likely would have ended the game. Instead it snuck through, and
the Phillies lost as a direct result of the manager’s poor strategy.

Two days, one questionable lineup decision and one baffling
defensive strategy decision, and I am already fed up with Ryne Sandberg. At
this rate it won’t be long before I’m painting the “F” on my “Fire Sandberg”
sign.

Friday, March 7, 2014

Sadly, the Philadelphia Eagles released all-round good guy and solid slot receiver Jason Avant — though he still came down out of bounds against Penn State in 2005, but I digress. So as a farewell to an excellent teammate and hard worker, here's the amazing Jason Avant music video.

Tomorrow, the Philadelphia 76ers will retire Allen Iverson's jersey, his patented No. 3 rising to the rafters forever. Of course I'll be there along with a slew of friends, and you bet your ass I'd pay for front-row seats to watch Iverson play again, the way The Roots and Beanie Sigel mentioned in "Adrenaline."

By the way, Foye's college teammate Kyle Lowry, who is having an absolutely awesome season for the Toronto Raptors, had his own incident this week, as he was called for a completely bogus offensive foul, then got T'd up for absolutely no reason, and finally decided to just run the hell off the court.

Let's be honest, official Michael Smith should be suspended for that. Not so much the absolutely horrific call — which was beyond awful — but for then giving Lowry a technical and running him from the game. That's just absurd. Michael Smith is a fucking joke.

I got your back, Kyle. And I definitely think Lowry should be an all-star over Joe Johnson.

Monday, February 3, 2014

One of the things that make sports so special is their
ability to bring people together. Families, friends, communities and entire
metropolitan areas can be united through their passionate support of a sports
team. A stranger passing on the street or waiting next to you for a train
suddenly becomes your friend simply because you have the same logo on your
hats. This unity overcomes racial and socioeconomic lines and almost any other
means of division you can think of, and when an entire community truly gets
behind a special team, it is a thing of beauty to watch and an incredible thing
to be a part of.

Another one of sports’ great traditions is the passing down
of fandom and loyalty from one generation to the next. Fathers to sons and then
to their sons, on and on it goes. Another moment of great beauty and a source
of joy for sports fans everywhere is sitting in a living room with grandpa,
dad and son/grandson with the favorite team on the TV. Grandpa tells stories
of glories of the past, long before son and grandson were around. Dad tells
tales of his earliest memories of going to games with his dad. Grandson listens
intently and glows with excitement as he talks about the future of their fandom
and thinks about his own first experiences with sports. They cheer, and they
curse. They commiserate over the disappointments and relish the victories.

My love of sports and the way I practice my fandom were
learned from my father. He was a sports fan from a young age, much like me, and
not only did he instill in me the passion I have for my teams and for the games
themselves, but also the knowledge of the games, the fundamentals, the rules,
the intricacies. And perhaps most of all, he taught me loyalty. There was just
one problem.

In 1976, there was a 16-year-old boy growing up in the
Philadelphia suburbs. That same year, the NFL was adding two expansion teams,
one by the name of the Seattle Seahawks. For some reason or another, that young
man made a decision. He decided that the Seattle Seahawks were going to be his
favorite professional football team. Why a 16-year-old living in the home
territory of one of the most passionate fan bases in the country would suddenly
decide to root for some new team on the other side of the country is beyond me,
and even he cannot produce a logical explanation. But the decision was made.
That young man grew up to father three children, the oldest of whom is me.

So back to our one problem. Despite being raised around
Seahawks memorabilia and following the team as an extreme youngster with my dad,
I eventually became a proud, passionate fan of the hometown Philadelphia
Eagles. Thankfully, we had other sports and other teams where had the same rooting interests (Sixers, Flyers and most notably Villanova basketball) so we still
get to share the great moments I discussed a few paragraphs earlier. But when
it came to football, it was lacking, although we rooted for each other’s teams
as long as they weren’t playing each other.

Despite rooting for two different teams, for a long time
there was still something we could share. And that was disappointment and
waiting. For the majority of their existence, the Seahawks have been subpar
and, even in their flashes of greatness, were never able to deliver a
championship. And I don’t need to recall in any details of all the disappointments
that have been endured by Philadelphia fans. Seasons came and seasons went, and
we each waited for our moment of glory.

Well last night, my dad’s moment of glory finally came.
After 38 years, after countless losing seasons and a few that ended in bitter
disappointment, after all that waiting, his loyalty was finally rewarded. I don’t
completely know what it feels like to win a Super Bowl, but my Phillies did
bring home the World Series and I will never forget what that was like. I
can certainly remember the excitement and joy experienced during other big
games, and so with every play Seattle made, every touchdown or forced turnover,
I thought of my dad and how excited he must be. As the minutes ticked away and
the outcome became evident, I thought of him and the joy welling up inside.
Despite the fact that I wished it was my team lifting the Lombardi Trophy, I
could at least be incredibly happy for the old man.

I waited 25 years to witness my first Philadelphia
championship. When it finally came, it was one of the most joyous and rewarding
experiences of my life, and a lot of that came from the wait, the disappointments, the “wait till next year.”

I’m thankful that it was ingrained in me by my father that
you pick your favorite team and you stick with them. You root for them, and you
stick it out in the good and the bad. There is no flip-flopping. There is no
changing teams from year to year. There is no flavor of the month. You wait,
because one day your loyalty will be rewarded, and when it is it will be so
worth it. And he was right. (Not too bad of a lesson for life in general
either.)

Well last night my dad’s loyalty was rewarded, and I couldn’t
be happier for him. He taught me a large part of what I know about sports. He
planted the seed and nurtured it with time spent explaining things and taking
me out to practice and taking me to games, time that was/is so special to me
and which I will never forget, and that seed blossomed into the passion I now
have for sports. And even though we root for different football teams, he
taught me through example how to be a true fan, how to be loyal, and that is
something I pride myself on in sports and in my everyday life.

Last night, I came across this photo of Vlade Divac over at The Grand Archives, and it immediately brought to memory the NBA commercial with Vlade and Chris Webber giving the Sacramento Kings dance team some pointers. So yeah, Vlade and Webber dancing with dancers.

Halftime Observations The Champ Bailey Effect
Champ Bailey has barely played this season, having missed 11 games in the regular season and starting just three. The past four weeks, he’s slowly eased his way back into lineup, finally starting today with plans of playing a full game. You’d think Sir Thomas Brady would take his shots at the long-in-the-tooth, one-time great, particularly given his health issues this year. And yet, Brady spent the entire first half throwing at every Denver defensive back other than Champ, proving the old man can still take away one half of the field when he’s out there — at least through one half. Keep an eye on that in the second half.

Joe Buck No Longer Annoys Me
Joe Buck has gotten a lot of flack over the years — some of it deserved and some of it not so much. Admittedly, I used to be among his most ardent critics, as I found his tone often condescending and his incessant talking annoying. But I gotta admit, Buck has annoyed me less and less the past few years when calling NFL games, and he’s done a damn fine job thus far with partner Troy Aikman — who I think is phenomenal in the booth — in this NFC Championship Game. So kudos, Joe Buck. You no longer annoy me. At least when calling football games.

That Navorro Bowman Play Makes Sick – On Several Levels
Navorrow Bowman is my favorite player in the NFL. He’s been my favorite player since his playing days at Penn State. That incredible and incredibly gruesome strip and recovery he made makes me sick … sick because of the resulting gruesome injury, sick that the referees could fuck up that call so badly and sick that the NFL rules in place prevent the right call from being made. Here’s hoping Bowman can make a full recovery and continue his incredibly awesome career, and here’s hoping the NFL stops with its idiotic rules and questionable referring. I’m so sick right now.

Monday, January 20, 2014

I wasn’t planning on writing anything about this, but as I
continue to read the ridiculous bashing of Richard Sherman all over the
interwebs, I can’t keep quiet any longer. The outrage over Sherman’s postgame
comments is so ridiculous it’s almost mind-blowing. If you live under a rock
and haven’t seen the interview, you can watch it here.

First and foremost, he didn’t even say anything outrageous
or offensive. He didn’t use any profanity, and he didn’t attack anyone
off-limits like a family member or someone who had nothing to do with the game.

Secondly, he had just made a stellar play that sealed his
team’s ticket to the Super Bowl. He had just finished playing a game of
football, one of the most violent sports on the planet. His adrenaline was
flowing, and he was understandably hyped. To expect him to be completely calm
and composed in that moment, in those circumstances, is asinine. You shove a
microphone in a man’s face 30 seconds after playing in a football game like
that, results like that are to be expected.

Thirdly, and I’ve touched on this topic before, athletes
that reach the absolute pinnacle of their profession have certain characteristics that have allowed them to do so, and those manifest themselves
in both positive and negative ways (and I don’t think this “incident” was
necessarily a negative manifestation). The man thinks he is the best at what he
does, and he has to have that attitude to be successful. Sometimes that comes
off the wrong way.

The bottom line is that trash talking is a part of sports.
Sports are competition, whether it’s at the professional level or a pickup game
at the playground. It’s about showing you are better than your opponent, and
pride is involved. In any sport, you are going to get trash talk, whether it’s
millionaires who are the best of the best or just a bunch of guys from the
neighborhood playing for nothing more than pride and the love of the game.

Many athletes have used trash talk to intimidate their
opponents or to get in their heads and take them out of their games. Muhammad
Ali, Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, Deion Sanders, I could go on and on. Hell, I
even have a friend who has a bit of a temper, and we quickly learned that if
you could agitate him and get under his skin, it took him completely off his
game. And we took advantage of that. It’s gamesmanship, all a part of the competition
and finding an advantage. And within the lines of the field or the court, it’s
actually pretty fun. It adds spice. It drives the players to step up their
game, either to back up the talk they are dishing or to shut up the guy who is
running his mouth.

Furthermore, there are a lot of worse things that athletes
do. Drugs, drunk driving, cheating on spouses, fighting, even murder. The point
of this post isn’t to pass judgment on anyone, but if you are looking for
reasons to lambaste an athlete, you can find a lot better ones than Richard
Sherman’s post-game comments. I'm just so tired of the holier-than-thou and
overly sensitive mindsets that have overrun our society.

Finally, for those of you who don’t know much about Richard
Sherman besides what the media and internet comment boards tell you, the man
graduated Salutatorian (second ranked) in this high school class and graduated
from Stanford with a 3.8 GPA. That tells me he’s a lot smarter and harder
working than most of the people who are blasting him. Oh, and he started the
Richard Sherman Family Foundation. So no, he’s not a thug. He’s arrogant in a
profession where arrogance is a survival skill. What all of the people who are
crucifying Richard Sherman today fail to realize is that maybe Richard Sherman
knows what he is doing. Maybe the abrasive, cocky man you see on the football
field is a character. A character that allows him to survive and excel in a
demanding profession. And maybe he’s just having some fun with it.

Richie Ashburn was one of the most beloved sports personalities ever in the City of Brotherly Love. Not only was he a Hall of Fame centerfielder, but he was part of the greatest broadcasting duo of all time along with Hall of Fame announcer Harry Kalas. Those two men literally helped raise me on the game of baseball, and I miss them both every single time I watch or listen to a Phillies game.